Pearl Jam

J;
2006

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No, really-- this album is the return to form that Pearl Jam fans have
been waiting for since Ten. Or Vs.. Or Vitalogy. Or whichever album was the last on which Pearl Jam were a fully
accredited rock band. This eponymous effort-- the group's eighth
studio full-length, and first for J Records-- is the most consistent effort the group's released since
its second album. No pump organ-flecked spoken-word jags about
insects, no meandering Eastern-tinged meditations on life, no songs
about Jeff Ament's dog. Just 13 tracks of thoughtful, middle-aged, post-grunge rock'n'roll for the thoughtful, middle-aged, post-grunge fellow in all of us. But
it gets pretty boring pretty damn quick.

Think what you will of the group, but there's no denying their growth.
Despite having the wide eyes of Alternative Nation turned toward them-- selling 17 million copies of their first two records-- Pearl Jam
decided to take the road less traveled, and that seemed to make all the
difference in maintaining the band's creative viability. Of course,
this choice is where they broke with the lion's share of their fan base-- millions who bought into Pearl Jam's original MO weren't
willing to put up with creative wanderlust. On Pearl Jam, that's what you get from
start to finish (barring one accordion cameo in the minute long reprise
of "Life Wasted"). While there's no shirt-rending Jesus Christ poses to
be had here, this is as close to the righteous bombast of their heyday
as they're likely to ever get again, for better or worse.

One thing that has returned, unfortunately: An emphasis on Eddie Vedder's voice, an
acquired taste's acquired taste. That his mushmouthed mewling and
moaning became the template for a slew of copycat chest-thumpers is the
stuff that keeps vocal coaches up at night. The "weird" Pearl Jam
albums found Vedder's singing improving ever so slightly, to the point
that he was actually singing without any odd affectations-- the uh-huhs,
the oooh-yeahs, the arghs. On this album, though, he's back to the
multi-line mulching, growling for all he's worth through its more aggressive tracks. He often sounds best on the low-tempo songs, where the mood better complements his voice's
strength-- Eddie's a crooner, not a wailer. But here, he even wails through the slower songs, killing "Parachutes" with his
over-emoting and vamping unsuccessfully over the bluesy saunter of "Come Back".

Granted, Pearl Jam haven't lost the perspective they've gained through age-- good luck trying to get their young selves to pen a Springsteenian
working-class portrait like "Unemployable". Instead of
trying to rage against the machine, they're appealing to its
intellectual nature. Unfortunately, this nuance is steamrolled by the
group's need for fan-friendly riffage. After years of trying to live up to one of their early
statements-- "there ain't gonna be any middle anymore"-- it's
disappointing to find them steering the ship back toward the center.